Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories eBook

“Say, from a financial point of view it is not
unworthy of your consideration,” I supplied,
unable to conceal my disgust.

“Well, yes,” he resumed blandly, “you
have hit it. However, I am by no means blind
to her fascination. Moreover, the countess has
a latent vein of fierceness in her nature which in
time may endear her to my heart. Last night,
for instance, we were at a ball at the Baron P——­’s,
and we danced together incessantly. While we were
whirling about to the rhythm of an intoxicating melody,
I, feeling pretty sure of my game, whispered half
playfully in her ear: ’Countess, what would
you say, if I should propose to you?’ ‘Propose
and you will see,’ she answered gravely, while
those big black eyes of hers flashed at until I felt
half ashamed of my flippancy. Of course I did
not venture to put the question then and there, although
I was sorely tempted. Now that shows that she
has spirit, to say the least. What do you think?”

“I think,” I answered, with emphasis,
“that if I were a friend of the Countess von
Brehm I should go to her to-morrow and implore her
to have nothing to do with you.”

“By Jove,” he burst forth, laughing; “if
I were a friend of the countess, I should do
the very same thing; but being her lover, I cannot
be expected to take such a disinterested view of the
case. Moreover, my labor would be thrown away;
for, entre nous, she is too much in love with
me.”

I felt that if I stayed a moment longer we should
inevitably quarrel. I therefore rose, somewhat
abruptly, and pulled on my overcoat, averring that
I was tired and should need a few hours of sleep before
embarking in the morning.

“Well,” he said, shaking my hand heartily,
as we parted in the hall, “if ever you should
happen to visit Denmark again, you must promise me
that you will look me up. You have a standing
invitation to my future estate.”

III.

Some three years later I was sitting behind my editorial
desk in a newspaper office in Chicago, and the impressions
from my happy winter in Copenhagen had well nigh faded
from memory. The morning mail was brought in,
and among my letters I found one from a Danish friend
with whom I had kept up a desultory correspondence.
In the letter I found the following paragraph:

“Since you left us, Dannevig has
been going steadily down hill, until at last his
order of Dannebrog just managed to keep him respectable.
About a month ago he suddenly vanished from the social
horizon, and the rumor says that he has fled from
his numerous creditors, and probably now is on
his way to America. His resources, whatever
they were, gradually failed him, while his habits
remained as extravagant as ever. If the popular
belief is to be credited, he lived during the two
last years on his prospect of marrying the Countess
von Brehm, which prospect in Copenhagen was always
convertible into cash. The countess, by the way,